Pretty bold statement!

It needs to be. I want you fired up about taking back your company from the jaws of defeat and get it headed in the direction of success.

Here are just 7 reasons your company might need to engineer a turnaround:

1. There’s been a change in the leadership.

   Note: There are new family members either entering the business or exiting. The business might have been sold and existing management is gone or needs to go.

2. There’s no clear leadership.

   Note: There’s infighting as to who should take the lead resulting in a rudderless corporate ship adrift. Without a clear leader, power struggles take hold and that will strangle any company.

3. The business sector you’re in is no longer viable.

   Note: If what you’re doing and how you’re doing it are no longer relevant to the marketplace [the end user], you have to shift to what it is you do or you too risk becoming like the once might Kodak™ now in Chapter 11.

4. The business sector you’re in has become too competitive and/or too crowded.

   Note: You can still be relevant but if there’s not enough demand to support all the players competing to sell those products and services you may need to reinvent your company.

5. You’re  putting yourself and your family deeper into debt every day.

   Note: If you’re ignoring the financial basics of creating more assets than liabilities, time is running out. You must cut expenses now, and sometimes it will mean ruthless cutting to save the “patient”.

6. You’ve been slowly killing the “golden goose”.

   Note:  If you’ve been pulling too much money out of the company without enough consideration to how it is robbing the company of future growth and potential cash dangers, you’re standing on very treacherous ground. Remember, it’s always easier to leave the money in the business than to take it out and have to put it back in. Setup a cash reserve based on a percentage of sales and have the discipline to leave it there for future growth and a “rainy day.”

7. You’ve expanded into too many businesses you had no business being in.

   Note: It’s easy to get sucked into taking on new businesses and trades because you feel you have the overall structure to support it or you just got bored with your core business. There are a host of reasons why we stray too far. But, without clear market research, a plan for entering the marketplace, the systems and support, this strategy is bound to lead you away from your core business and you’ll end up ignoring the “golden goose” at your own peril.

With over 10 years of helping companies re-engineer themselves and pull back from going over the financial cliff, I’m pleased to say that when ownership knuckled down to the task at hand the results were far and away positive for everyone. It’s not an easy path and having a “trail guide” with experience is not a luxury it’s a necessity.

Here’s a classic approach to engineering a turnaround:

1. Recapitalize the company by slashing the amount of money you take out of the company. Use cash to take out non-performing ownership so all who are left have a stake in the game and are willing to do what it takes to take this time-tested hard trail to a successful conclusion.
2. Seek to renegotiate existing debt with vendors for either longer payouts, lower interest rates or whatever other tactics you need to employ that benefit both you and the vendor. The fact is you defaulting on what you owe is a bad thing for all. This needs to be viewed as a “partnership” process for all concerned.
3. Separate expenses into two simple columns. One is must have and the other column is nice to have. Then, take a hatchet to the appropriate expenses.
4. Build cash by selling underperforming businesses and hard assets like trucks and inventory as necessary. Most times, becoming a smaller company that is profitable is far superior to the allure of being a bigger company with no profits or losses. Get your ego out of the way. Here’s the cool thing….you can grow again but this time in a smarter way!
5. You can’t cut yourself to health. You must also restructure the company by shifting resources to new, value-added product lines [ex: green products and services] that utilize your company’s core expertise and help you develop a desired niche.
6. Spend your marketing dollars wisely by energizing targeted acquisitions that strengthen the new corporate direction. Acquisition done the right way is the surest way to build calls fast. That’s because you’re buying real calls vs. marketing alone which is a hope it will result in calls. Plus, you take out competitors in your marketplace which can create room to raise prices as you build heft. If you can shut down a competitor and put their company under your roof, you can make more money with their current sales than they could ever do as a stand-alone company bearing the burden of redundant expenses.

Engineer a turnaround at your company and reap the rewards!

Finally, I’d be out of crisis mode and problem solving. At least, that was the plan.

But invariably at 5 O’clock another kind of interruption would happen. A staff member would be knocking on the doorframe [I had an open door policy] and asking me, “Got a minute?”

Based on the time of the day and the pressure in their voice, I already knew that I was about to be taken hostage.

What did they want a minute of my time to talk about after the official end of their workday? Well, at that time of day, it was to either let me know they had another job offer or to ask me for a raise so they could stay.

What time of year did the 5 O’clock knock happen most? You guessed it…our busiest times.

I was now forced into playing defense and trying to talk the employee into not jumping ship so I’d have to sweeten the deal to keep them. Most often that meant overpaying them to keep them onboard. And when this would occur I would feel like a hostage. I hated feeling like a hostage but at that point in my business career I didn’t know how to be proactive. So, I caved more times than not.

Sound familiar?

And once an employee knows they can hold you hostage they will be back again.

Frankly, I was angry at them. But over time, I came to realize it wasn’t their fault. I had never defined how someone moves ahead and makes more money at our company. I had never even considered what it was like for them to have to come and ask me for a raise as if I was there dad and they wanted a hike in their allowance. When, I pulled myself away from the anger and saw it from their perspective, I realized this arbitrary process of getting a raise was bad for me and bad for them.

That’s when I set about to create a fairer system in which it was based on objective demonstrated performance that was tied to Salary Levels that matched our Organizational Chart. It defined in writing for all to know how you moved up the ladder and how you could make more money. Later on, the extra sweetener was the opportunity to sell more things and make more money.

Having Salary Levels even helped me hire better. Now, I could sit with in a hiring  interview with a new candidate and share with them where they could go in the future and how they could make more money with us. It was the first time I didn’t let these potential staff members force me into overpaying them at the expense of my own staff because I was being oversold on what they could really do.

The hiring conversation became more like, “We don’t know where to place you along our Salary Levels so over the next 90 days we will be doing both in-house testing and real-world testing to see where you fit. Know that this system will ultimately let you make more money as you demonstrate you’re worth it. We will even help you get better because it’s in everyone’s best interest. You will never need to guess or hope a raise is coming…you’ll know!”

Give your employees a system that addresses their “WIIFMs.”

Remember, good policies and procedures known by everyone at your company will also help people be effective at your company and demonstrate they’re worthy of more money as they prove they’re more productive. Good policies and procedures are designed to empower people to handle what comes up 80% of the time successfully.

Think positively about your staff and yes, even learn how to love them…then…create a fair set of rules to play buy and make sure they get a voice in how you do your work. This is what builds buy-in and longevity at your company. Ultimately, everyone will win.

I know that the words “Personality Profiling” can carry a stigma especially in our society but let me lay out the pros and cons first and then you can make your decision as to whether it may be right for you and your company.

First off, personality testing is nothing new. It’s been around for years. It’s also been used both positively and negatively at all size companies.

One of the biggest pros to doing this type of testing is it can help people learn how to work together in a more harmonious way and help put people into situations that give them a greater chance to be successful.

One of the biggest cons to this type of testing is it can be used to manipulate people and limit what projects and work staff members get assigned as well as how far they can go at a company.

Personality profiling can be a double-edged sword. But, it doesn’t have to be. It all depends on how you intend to use it. If you use it to recruit and hire people in a better way so they can be better matched to the job you’re hiring for by better identifying what their strengths are, it’s a good thing. If you use it to help bring about better understanding and a mechanism for teaching team members how to better communicate with one another, it’s a big plus. But if you use it to learn how to better manipulate and control people, well it’s a huge negative.

So, let’s talk about how to make this a useful tool.

Remember, this type of testing can help identify people’s tendencies but it doesn’t provide the absolute end all be all truth about people and what they can ultimately do and accomplish.

Personally, I’ve taken many different personality profiling tests and I really like them.  Today, I recommend them to my clients once they understand how to use them the right way.

I was raised by my dad that you should never ask anyone to do something you wouldn’t do. So if you are going to do engage personality profiling, I strongly suggest you take the test and share what it says about you. No bad thing can come of it.

I feel so strongly in personality testing that I share what my own test results reveal about me just as I ask them to take the test and share what their results say about them and their tendencies. That is after we discuss how to use it to our mutual benefit which is learning how we can work together in a better way.

Let me explain what the difference between tendencies and absolute truths are by way of examples. My personality profile shows there is very little that would make me want to be up in front of people doing lectures, workshops and seminars. Yet, I’ve done tons of workshops, keynote speeches and training seminars over the years with great success. This is not to brag I leave the impartial testimonials on my website to defend my statement.

What makes my training good despite not tendency to want to be on stage or in front of people being entertaining is I have an overriding desire to achieve a successful outcome fueled by a desire to learn and then share with others what I’ve learned. The absolute truth here is I have a bigger desire for the outcome to turn out the way I want it to be that I override my tendencies. The desire to be successful and become a better speaker and trainer has led me to do a lot of training and practice with some great trainers who specialize in making people better speakers. I get way out of my normal comfort zone and I’m happy to do it.

I have one more example of how tendencies can be helpful but not an absolute truth. I have been working with another consultant with a number of clients for over 5 years. On paper, we’re about as opposite as opposites can get. But, we shared our personality testing results and learned how one another ticks and what we’re motivated to do and not do. We know what each of us likes to do and over time we’ve learned what we’d prefer the other person do. It works because we’ve learned how to use words that ring true with each other and it’s to our mutual benefit and our clients as well.

Last but not least, I have personally helped extraordinarily shy people become great on the phone as a Customer Service Representatives. I’ve also done the same with introverted Tech by teaching them how to talk with customers and become better at sales. Here’s what I know. Nobody who is extraordinarily shy wants to talk to people on the phone let alone face to face but if the desire is high enough, there are enough good rewards, a mentor to help then a person can pretty much overcome most of their initial weaknesses to reach great levels of success.

Now, if you can help someone leverage their good tendencies and talents by better understanding them and putting them in the right situation and coach them the way they need to be coached, the sky is the limit.

It’s a powerful advantage to use these tools. Just be careful to make things too convoluted and too technical. You want to avoid “paralysis by analysis.”

Try to take away from any good testing a few key words or key points that will help the team learn how to interact in a more positive way. Then practice it so it becomes natural.

The big thing to remember is you and your team’s attitude has to be one that focuses on, “We’re in this together to make a win for the customers, the company and ourselves.”

Then, take the time to listen to one another….and yes….learn how to love and respect one another.

Actually, I’m more like a technology geek with one careful distinction. I love technology with a purpose.

But, not all technology is good technology at least not all applications of technology are beneficial.

A prime example of that would be when you think you can run your company and do all your communications via email. You can’t!

Here’s why. You can’t read “tone” when you read email. In other words, you can’t see all the non-verbal clues you’re sending out when they don’t see you. And non-verbal communication is the largest big part of communications. Some experts have pegged the various aspects of non-verbal communication at 70% or more of the way we truly communicate with one another.

Is there a good place for email? Yes!

It’s great for staying in quick contact with Techs in the field and even documenting a path of communication within the office. It’s a great way to send restocking orders to suppliers.

But have you ever had an ongoing “email conversation” where you and the person you’re emailing ratchet up the hostility with each email response you bounce off one another? I’m sure you have.

I’d suggest that much of the email that gets rocketed back and forth with an ever-rising edge be nipped in the bud and instead you set up a time to meet face to face talk happen sooner rather than later or when it’s not practical at least get on the phone with one another.

Why so much emailing to one another anyway? I mean really sometimes the persons emailing are in the next office over or even worse the next cubicle.

I suspect that much of the inter-office emailing is an attempt to avoid face to face confrontation if it’s something you feel might spark contention. Although, I believe it’s more a desire to avoid interaction. And that’s a shame. One of the biggest reasons people go to work beyond their paycheck is to belong to a group and interact.

Is our technology isolating us more and more so that an email, a text or even a Facebook™ post now passes for communication? I think it does. It’s communication but not always productive and certainly not a replacement for face time or even phone time [the seemingly old technology].

Also, it’s clear that we’re all busier. The technology helps us communicate quickly but not effectively. It gets worse when we’re tempted to do broadcast emails that reach many people. This is especially so at larger companies. Most times mass emails get the same reaction as mass meetings. Those attending mass meetings tend to think to themselves, “This meeting isn’t about me. It must be about the others.” And this is what recipients of mass emails think too.

I know how fast an email conversation can become a war of words because I have experienced it with my own email communications. It’s easy to keep firing off emails to people and feel the tone we read into them make our blood pressure rise. That’s why I try to adhere to my own rule of thumb which is if I haven’t been able to successfully and clearly communicate with someone within two emails what I’m trying to convey I will set up a quick phone call asap. A phone call doesn’t address all of the ways we non-verbally communicate with one another   but it does allow me to better address what I’m trying to say in email by being able to add in the right tone and inflection with my voice. It allows for a connection on a higher level.

One thing that is becoming screamingly clear and that the speed of our communications and the miscommunications it carries in our 24 hour a day world. Even how fast we reply to an email has repercussions because we crave immediate responses from an immediate medium. That’s once again why the tone can turn hostile quickly.

If you want to get better at the art of email, a great book to read about the hazards of email is “The Tyranny of E-mail: The Four-Thousand-Year Journey to Your Inbox” by John Freeman.

As far as I can tell, email and for that matter texting are here to stay so you might as well get good at the dos and the don’ts and find a way to have one less war to fight at your workplace.

Truth is I love being in business. It fulfills a need that I have to bring to reality dreams of great service and being the best place for my employees to work. I'm excited to design solution to the problem and acting on these solutions. All great stuff until I'm faced with the frustrations of day to day business.

Honestly I'm as good at business as my experiences have taught me to be. Realizing I come up short sometimes on solutions, I've attended seminars, read books and joined groups searching for answers. This has resulted in great ideas to fix problems that I would then rollout to the employees and it would fizzle out within a short time. Employees had learned to put up with the new program for a few weeks as they learned that it would soon be unenforced and things would go back to normal.

That's the way it was until I brought Al Levi to my company to teach us how to be better at what we do and how to make the process stick.

Frankly, I was concerned that our company being mostly commercial focused it would not be a good fit, but I soon discovered that it works for commercial as well as residential. After all, it's people that create the work and if we can fix what's broken with the people we will have a much better company no matter what we do.

Al has a plan that works! As Al says, "The trick is to do the right thing at the right time in the right way". He is leading us through his programs step by step. Al is amazingly available and sincerely interested in us. He puts in 110% effort to my 100% effort and he is like a father to us, in a good way, because he's totally interested in our success.

I would have to count the decision to work with Al as one of the top ten smartest decisions that I've made in the 20 years of being in business.

There is always a balancing act between how much work we sub out so we can stay focused on our core business and giving away dollars and control to someone else.

This leads inevitably to the continual question about whether or not to take on a new trade with new products and services makes sense will continually challenge you and eliminate the subs.

There is no one answer that fits all but here is some good advice that I share with my own clients who have both decided to continue to appropriately use subs and to enter new trades successfully. It’s all based on my own company’s approach.

As a matter of fact, one of my clients is currently debating the value of whether or not to add weatherization products and services to the work they already do. There is this enviable situation because they now do a great job of selling and doing home energy audits and this weatherization work is a natural result of their energy audits.

Currently, they use well-trained subs [the customer delegated how to do the work to their standards!] who do this work at very competitive pricing. But, we naturally debate the worth of potentially making more money and more control of the outcome.

What I recommended to him when faced with a great question like this is to bring it up in his “Daily Business Meditation” first. The “Daily Business Meditation” is where you ask yourself the following set of questions and spend time thinking about it:

1. What business am I really in?
2. What business should I be exiting?
3. What business should I be going into?

In this scenario as to whether or not to bring on a new trade with a new set of products and services, you must ask yourself the next set of questions and then answer them as honestly as you can by first removing your ego from the equation:

1. Will we make more money for less grief by continuing to sub the work out?
2. Does subbing the work out keep us from being distracted from what we should be focusing on?
3. Would we make more money and still be competitive in pricing as well as do a better job if we did the work ourselves?

The other bigger questions to ask are:

1. Are you already on top of how to deliver on sales and work done in the trades your company does today?
2. Are you the company people think about when they want top notch work in the trade or trades your company does?

   Note:   If you said yes to these two questions, it’s time to think about expanding into another sector or just growing your service area. If not, it’s time to stay focused and make this a reality first and then re-examine how this next piece you want to add would fit in a profitable model.

My family would ask ourselves these very same questions as it related to own company before we branched out from only selling and servicing oil heating to gas heating, cooling and plumbing. We also know we wanted to “Own the Basement” and keep our competitors out who were beginning to steal away our customers.

Plus, we had learned the secret to successfully adding new trades and that is the creation of documented policies and procedures coupled with a working training center and course curriculum. And the commitment to buy all the tools and equipment and provide the training is what it takes to do this new trade the right way. All of this is a must!

BUT, our company also knew what trades we didn’t want to do. And one trade we never wanted to do was home security. That’s why we found a really good home security company that we could be allies with and we worked out a “Stand-Still Agreement” that benefited us both. A quick explanation of a “Stand-Still Agreement” is that it’s an agreement where both parties agree not to enter each other’s business or take one another’s clients. Know that this type of agreement can vary.

One last thing, once you are philosophically onboard about adding this next piece to your company, you must do a “financial projection” and remember if it doesn’t make sense on paper….don’t pursue it!

I get a lot of great answers like, “It’s against our human nature to change.” “It’ll be a lot of work to change so it’s easier to do nothing” “Fear of the unknown”.

After many years  of being the Agent of Change at my own company and now at many companies I can tell you the #1 reason I find people resist change….”It’s the Fear of Failure!”

They can absolutely hate what they are doing or what they have to deal with at work and you can offer them something that should be obviously a better way but invariably the unspoken resistance built up by their own fears of failure finds a way to rear its ugly head. “Fear of Failure” is a powerful force.

It causes staff members to skip trying to change things because if it doesn’t work out they’ll feel like they tried and failed which is bound to be disappointing to them or you or both. So, the status quo wins and the misery continues.

That is unless you are willing to take this adversary on head first when you are proposing any sort of change.

Here’s what I did when I realized how powerful the fear of failure was and how much it undermined the desire for change.

I learned to say, “We’re going to change [whatever it was] and I know that can be scary so I’m going to kick it in slowly over the next 30 days so everyone can get comfortable. Also, I’m going to setup the corresponding training that will make all of us, including me, better prepared to succeed and there will be no reason to fear failing here.”

It’s the spoonful of sugar that made the medicine go down.

Now, words are not enough. You must back up your words by:

1. Defining exactly what change you’re seeking
2. Sharing why we need this change
3. Objectively defining how we will know if the change is helping us
4. Sharing what resources we have to make the change become permanent
5. Explaining what’s their WIIFM [“What’s In It For Me”] either good or bad for helping to bring about this change

The other thing that will derail change is trying to change too many things all at once without a plan. Change without a plan is really just an invitation to chaos. That’s why you need to focus on getting one positive change in place and build confidence and enjoy the win. Then, it makes it easier to get buy-in from the team as you seek to get the next change implemented.

If you get the input of your team about what needs changing vs. just making mandates about what must change, you greatly affect the chances that the change will be embraced. Everyone at your company is dying to have their voice heard.

Remember, even though they suggest a change doesn’t mean you have to do it. But, you do want to balance that they’re adults and adults need to be treated differently than kids.

To me, they are owed an answer and it’s typically one of the following 3 answers when they ask for a change:

1. Yes, we can do that
2. We can’t do that today but we can re-visit it in the next 6 months
3. No, we can’t do that and here’s why

Never feel pressured to answer immediately when a request for a change is made. Let them know by writing it down that they’ve been heard and let them know when they can expect one of the three answers from above.

Here’s a tip….unless you hate it….try to implement something they recommend that needs changing. It buys you a lot of credibility when you tell them their input is important vs. asking for input and never acting upon it.

One more strange thing about change, people get so attached to the status quo that they will defend the old way of doing things despite the fact they groused about it for years.

As you build the momentum of positive change being implemented at your company, the pace quickens and pretty soon there are more and more people coming to your aid in moving your company in a positive direction of change.

After all, the only thing you can really count on in life and in business is change. So, why not get really good at it?

I also work with these same companies that are service work only, install work only and those who do both service work and install work.

Wait…it gets more complicated.

Some companies like to distinguish between small install and big install. Or they like to separate AOR [add on replacement] typically for residential or light commercial from new construction which can be residential or commercial.

I’m not finished. I also work with companies who then through in the fact that they do one trade only like plumbing, heating, cooling, electrical, roofing and carpentry. And many more companies who now do 1, 2, 3, 4 or more trades and create separate divisions for each.

The problem is that with so many factions brewing at these companies divisiveness can spring up and it usually does!

It gets super complicated to track what work was done by which of these multiple divisions and who is producing profit when we borrow labor from one another.

Ultimately, you do either service work or you do install work.

To be clear, the way I define service is a tech goes to a home or business prepared to solve a problem, they present the solution, sell the repair, do the work and collect the money. The definition of install is a job typically a day or more of work sold by someone else, at our company it was our salespeople who we call system engineers, and now they the installer is installing equipment and trying to bring the job in on-time and on-budget.

Another problem with creating too many divisions on your Organizational Chart at your company is that it becomes a financial nightmare to track it all.

Worse than tracking all this from a financial stuff that too many divisions cause is that too many divisions create sub cultures that create an unhealthy rivalry for the owner’s attention and the company’s resources

Moving away from focusing on it being either service work or install work and tons of divisions is this breeding of micro-companies at your company don’t work to the right order of things which is: “What’s the best way to serve the customer first, the company second and the staff third?” Nothing can benefit the staff or the company if it doesn’t first benefit the customer. In other words, you, the staff, can’t win at the expense of the customer first and the company second.

At my own shop years back, we had guys who were service techs only and guys who were installers only too.

But, the problem that crept coming up for my company years ago [as it now does with most of my new clients] was we were either swamped with too many service calls or swamped with too much install work and we need to steal guys from each division occasionally to keep up.

As a matter of fact, I recall it being a divisive culture at my own shop. Understand that our installers worked very hard Monday through Friday from at least 8 to 5 PM and many times very late into the night to complete their work. But, when it was freezing cold, broiling hot or flooding, they’d just finish their job and they’d just wave goodbye to the service techs as they headed home knowing full well that these guys would be out nights, weekends and holidays working crazy hours to keep up with the increased demand.

To make matters worse, the installers despite constant pleading would invariably do maddening things like bury circulators in inaccessible locations or put furnaces in so that the blower access doors became a service nightmare. They probably thought to themselves, “Why should I care…I’m not coming back to do the service?”

And the Service techs, knew how to play the game too. They’d call for an installer anytime something so simple as cutting a 1” piece of pipe needed to be done.

Hey, you know what they say about payback.

Finally, I had enough. I explained that from here on out you, my service techs, are also going to be cross-trained to do appropriate install work when I need you to do so. And I explained to my installers that from here on out you’re installers primarily but you’re going to be cross-trained to handle appropriate service work the right way too.

I also realized it was really my fault because I hadn’t done cross-training and I hadn’t provided an incentive to the techs that addressed their “What’s In It For Me” so why should they help out?

When they got cross-trained the right way, I paid them more for their additional levels of skills and they loved the added responsibility of moving up the Org. Chart.

The other great thing was the inter-company divisiveness began to disappear.

We had more capable hands on deck for when the stuff hit the fan on service or we were getting backlogged on install work. For the first time ever, the installers actually installed stuff with access in mind just because they knew that they might now have to come back and actually work on this equipment. And service techs knew that they would be required to do simple install tasks that they could no longer dump on installers anymore.

It was lovely!

Okay, I’m not suggesting you push this change until you have documented procedures for how you do your service and install work and a training center or at least your own building and home to work on how to do the work the right way. But, I am suggesting that if you commit to this path your dispatch nightmares and workflow issues will be greatly reduced. Plus, you company will start acting more like a team if you do this the right way!

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Green is the niche I teach my one to one consulting clients to either get into or expand their efforts. The goal is to “Go Green Themselves. Educate Others How to Green. Sell Green Products and Services.”

I feel it’s our moral obligation to take better care of this planet but beyond this higher calling it resonates with so many people as the right thing to do whether we’re talking about your staff or your customers.

One of the many steps in this process is to build your own Green Team among your staff so that the mantra of “Go Green. Educate Green. Sell Green” becomes a reality and a rallying cry rather than an afterthought.

When selecting a “Green Team”, here are just some of the good criteria to use from the book called “101 Ways to Turn Your Business Green” by Rich Mintzer:

1. Get support and guidance through the green team that can research and report on various means of improving sustainability within the company.
2. Get members to share their expertise about how their area of the company works today and how we can be greener tomorrow.
3. Consider a company-wide survey to see what ideas they have on going green and who wants to volunteer to be on the green team.
4. Consider company-wide incentives for participation.
   Note: This is ONLY if enthusiasm is waning! People who are participating need to know this is what the company is all about.
5. Meeting logistics typically cover:
• When
• Where
• Who
• Start with a list of some common goals
• Management involvement and support
• Share with everyone that suggestions by the green team can be acted but only within budget and time constraints.

At the initial meeting we should cover:

1. Announce who the team leader is
2. Appoint a secretary
3. Discuss overall goals such as creating a “Sustainability Plan”
4. Discuss finances
5. Discuss and list some general areas in which the company could become more sustainable such as reducing waste, conversing energy and water, moving toward sustainable purchasing practices and using alternative means of transportation
6. Discuss responsibilities of team members to research and report their findings
7. Divide responsibilities so each member knows which area they will cover
8. Determine some rough deadlines for reporting on possible solutions –to be put in Outlook tasks
9. Develop a meeting schedule and determine a regular meeting place
10. Determine the best means of communication between members, which will typically be email
11. Discuss any training that might be of benefit to the team such as Webinars, seminars, or books everyone should read.
12. Finally, we want to determine when the team or team leader will discuss the proposed changes with management so they can be prioritized, budgeted for and brought to fruition.

Here’s a good way to go about energizing the team to better serve your customers and the community you serve:

“Our company and our employees are dedicated to leading the way in demonstrating good Green Citizenship by becoming known as the place to go for all things Green. Hence, we’re seeking to be known as the Green Learning Center.

Our customers and our community that we serve need to know that whether it’s about energy saving, improvement in comfort and indoor air quality or health in general with things that are sustainable and better for us and our planet, we’re their resource. To us, that means were passionate about being Green ourselves and then sharing with other how they can do things take some small but effective steps for themselves so they can be greener and as appropriate we can help provide the products and services that will make them greener still.”

Do this and the planet will be a better place and everyone will benefit by it!

ANNOUNCEMENT:

What’s the number one question I get asked? …

“How do I get my phone ringing NOW?”

I hear you and that’s why I took the highly successful program called Get More Calls Now and made it even more affordable by making it a self-study program.

Click here to learn more:   www.GetMoreCallsNow.com

I don’t believe in “Born Salesperson.”

The reason is I was terrible at first when I began my selling career and then I got really good. So good in fact, that I learned how to teach my own sales people how to make big ticket sales and how to teach my own techs how to sell repairs and appropriate add on suggestions. They weren’t born salespersons either!

They got better because I share with them the belief that it was in the customer’s best interest that we get better prepared and follow a systematic way to go about selling. It required that we find out what the customer really needed and what they really wanted. We got so good we actually helped customers discover that we had solutions to their nagging problems that they just assumed could not be solved.

The trick to leveraging sales is to be able to make it possible for many sales people and many techs to sell in a consistent way.

To do that, you are well served to train your techs and sales people on how to demystify the sales process for your customer and to build value in all the things you’re company can do for them. This is what separates you from your competition.

A great place to start is by asking good open-ended question that get the customer talking to you about what is going on today, what they see as a successful outcome and what they want in the way of comfort, energy saving and more.

You also need to organize the process of what you’re going to do when and what you will show them to help them make a good buying decision.

Here is a good overview:

1. Have 2 to 3 questions you’d have them ask a customer about their existing comfort and efficiency to make sure you know exactly what they desire. This will help you pay special attention to what solutions you can offer in their best interest
   Note: Take notes because they words the customer uses are the ones you want to repeat back as you present them with a solution.
2. If selling a replacement heating and cooling unit, get permission to do an intensive heat loss and heat gain of their home when selling.
3. If performing a service call, get permission to do a visual survey so you don’t miss anything that could be problematic now or in the near future. It’s worth their time to make good suggests on what you can do to take care of it now because typically it’ll never be cheaper for you to do it than if they approve it while you’re there.
   Note: Doing multiple jobs at the time of service deserves a legitimate discount based on knowing your numbers.
4. Let them know you’re going to spend some extra time looking at the trouble spots where they said it was either too warm, too hot, too cold or where they’re running out of hot water too fast.
5. As a sales person, you need to let them know how long you will spend either onsite creating a customized proposal that you will go through line by line with them so they know exactly what they will be getting for their hard-earned money. And if you can’t do this onsite, let them know when you’ll be back to go through it together.
   Note:   Don’t kid yourself by thinking emailing it, faxing it or mailing it will result in them magically knowing the value of what you selected and how you do that work. It’s going to have a negative impact on the amount of closed sales you get.
   Note: If you absolutely can’t be back, you can setup a GoToMeeting to run through it together or even a phone call where you at least go over it line by line will greatly enhance your chances of making the sale.
6. As a Tech, you are well served to create a menu of options that address the need today and legitimate recommendations for things that improve comfort, safety, efficiency and more.

Finally, selling the right way is a skill like all other skills and that means it requires practice. If you have a training center, you’re already ahead of the game. If you don’t, use your home or your office to simulate tech selling and sales person selling and watch the money roll in! R